2012/12/18 Rouslan Placella <rouslan@placella.com>
Hi all,

I've written a patch[0] that will concatenate js files on the server
side before sending them to the client. This will reduce the number of
http requests for js files to one per page. So, effectively, there will
be one request for js files when a user first loads a pma page and
subsequently there will 0 or 1 request (depending if we already have the
needed js file already loaded client side) for any additional page the
user navigates to. The patch would also close feature request[1] #3583340.

The performance benefits should be pretty obvious. You can see a
screenshot[2] of the firebug network panel that I took before and after
the patch. In the screenshot, I started on the main page and went to 4
different server status pages afterwards. This was on a local
installation, remote installations should benefit even more...

The reason that I'm bringing this issue up on the mailing list is that
there is also a drawback. Debugging js files will become somewhat more
complex, since we would have to figure out which file a problem might be in.

So the question is: are we willing to pay the price for this performance
boost?

Bye,
Rouslan

[0]: https://github.com/roccivic/phpmyadmin/tree/js-file-loader
[1]:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3583340&group_id=23067&atid=377411
[2]: http://www.placella.com/temp/js-file-loader.png

How about making a switch for developers, which would allow for easier debugging in development environment? Could it work like that, or is it too complex to maintain two code paths?

--
Regards,
Piotr Przybylski